Evaluating Bike Share

The community's GR Forward strategy recommends exploring bike share as a way to expand mobility options for residents, workers and visitors in Grand Rapids.

Bike share is a flexible, healthy and affordable transportation service the provides people the opportunity to pick-up a bicycle at a self-serve station, and return that bicycle to any other station located in the system's service area.

In cities such as Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Chicago, bike share has changed how people get around the city and expanded the amount of destinations they can get to in a short amount of time.

The walk from DeVos Place to Founders Brewing, for example, takes about 16 minutes for the average person; using bike share the trips takes 6 minutes. In other words, Bike share is essentially a pedestrian accelerator that allows people to cover a larger area in a shorter amount of time.

Feasibility Study Process & Schedule

Acting on theGR Forward recommendation to further explore bike share in Grand Rapids, the next step is to assess the feasibility of the idea. This includes identifying local challenges and opportunities, defining key objectives and successful outcomes and assessing the range of costs and benefits associated with building any system. Based on the findings of the feasibility analysis, this process also involves developing a bike share system business plan to help inform future steps.

The schedule of public information and community engagement opportunities below continues to evolve as the process reveals interest and opportunity.